Kate Upton leads in pre-hype for teasers of Super Bowl 2013 ads

Coke got out of the gate first, but frankly, a commercial purported to show Kate Upton washing a Mercedes-Benz in SLOW MOTION has, in our estimation, taken the lead in the pre-hype of upcoming teasers for Super Bowl XLVII.

Not the game. The ads.

Here’s the tease (and it is just that, in more ways than one):

(Our own tease: You can see a lot more of Upton in the gallery below!)

Critics of the ad on YouTube point out that you can’t see much of the car, which doesn’t appear to be the point of the ad. The point of the ad appears to be that you’ll watch to see if Upton gets wet (ahem — in SLOW MOTION) and then up pops an advertising link saying, “Click here for a sneak peek at the ad that will appear in the Super Bowl.”

That ad (below) appears to have nothing to do with Upton in slow motion or the whole car-washing thing.

Mercedes writes on the YouTube page: “In an old New Orleans cafe, a powerful force is undeniably present. What it is won’t be revealed until the Super Bowl. Will you be watching?”

Will that force be Upton in a wet T-shirt? Well, who knows. We do know from a press release that Upton will be appearing in a Super Bowl ad for the Mercedes-Benz CLA four-door coupe.

“The ad, which was created by Merkley+Partners (NYC), is a tongue-in-cheek depiction of how far a person might go to get their heart’s desire and what shape the ‘good life’ might take. Filmed in part on location in New Orleans, MBUSA went full throttle with star power including Kate Upton and Usher playing themselves.”

OK, we give up. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see (but if you want to see more of Upton now, remember, we’ve provided a gallery below).

Update 1-24-13: In the “You just can’t please some people” category, the Daily Mail of London reports that parents are outraged over not seeing more car than Upton, while others are mad they don’t see enough of her.

A spokeswoman for the Parents Television Council told the MailOnline that the car commercial ‘isn’t selling cars, it’s selling sexual objectification’ while disgruntled viewers think they don’t see enough of Upton, the news org wrote.

Back to our story:

The stakes are high for companies and their commercial creators. As ABC News reports: The Super Bowl is generally the largest TV audience of any year. Last year more than 111 million watched the game and over 114 million tuned in for the halftime show. And Super Bowl commercials this year will run for up to $4 million for 30 seconds.

Now, on to some more-straightforward hype for teases of upcoming Super Bowl ads.

First, this video is an interview with an Anheuser-Busch dude about what we can expect from the beer-maker … in short, long legs, superstition and the Clydesdales.

The company is asking viewers to cheer for three very different groups in an interactive marketing blitz during the big game: A troupe of showgirls, a band of cowboys and a biker-style gang of “badlanders” — all on a quest for a thirst-quenching Coke in a desert.

Beginning Wednesday through the end of the Super Bowl users can vote online or send a tweet to choose their favorite group, and try to sabotage other groups. The winner, tallied in real time, will be shown in an ad immediately following the final whistle of the Super Bowl.